Because I like polls

[Poll #806410]

Seeing my new nephew // Dentist appointments // Amy’s scheduled checkup

Okay, better late than never.

( Going down to Wuppertal to meet my new nephew )

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( Dentist appointment #1, or “Mit Blaulicht beim Zahnarzt” )

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( Dentist appointment #2, or You can call me “Morgenstund” now )

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I’ll also have to get an existing crown in the lower left side replaced; a corner of the crown had chipped off and the dentist had recommended for quite a while that it get replaced eventually. Now I have to consider whether I want to get the replacement crown all in white or all-metal (just one side in white, as with the top, is apparently not done in that position, since the tooth is a bit further back).

For vanity reasons, I think I’d prefer white, since the bottom row of teeth is more visible when you open your mouth (and I have no fillings on the bottom row). However, white would cost me about €440, while gold would cost me about €300, so about €140 more mostly for looks, which my wife says she’s not happy about paying for.

I suppose I could cough up the difference from pocket money, but that’s quite a bit to spend if it hurts “my” money rather than “our” money, since our individual allowances aren’t that large (it’d be more than three months’ allowance for me). So I’m still uncertain what to do about that tooth. Though perhaps I should feel lucky that I'm paying mostly for the material and that my insurance is covering the actual work; according to Wikipedia, The cost of applying a crown in the US can range from $600 to $3,100, depending on what materials are used. [… T]he time-consuming process of the operation is one reason for the high cost.

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( Amy’s scheduled checkup )

Amy’s playgroup

Yesterday afternoon, Stella persuaded me to come to Amy’s playgroup with her since “you’re the only dad who hasn’t been there yet at some point.” So since I’m on holiday, I went.

I met a number of other mothers and, of course, their children. For much of the time (between opening and closing activities and songs), the mothers sat around a table, drank tea or coffee, and chatted, while the children played with one another. The children are all around the same age since the playgroups are grouped by birth date, so children keep growing up together. (So this group is not “children who are two” or something like that but “children born between June and October 2004”, and has stayed together since the children were less than a year old, and will continue until they’re three.)

I found that at least two children are being raised with more than one language: Tom hears German, Greek, and Dutch (his father is Dutch and his mother is Greek), and Laetitia hears German and French (her grandmother is French and her mother already grew up bilingually; she speaks both languages to her child).

Gini, Laetitia’s mother, also started a French-speaking playgroup which I’ll try to tell Cuveliers about. (Though they already know about it since Sister Cuvelier met Gini at Toys “Я” Us by chance one day. However, Gini said they never called her, but then, she was away on holiday for a bit in the past few weeks.) Gini said that they usually speak French at playgroup but occasionally forget and lapse into German :)

Yay bilingual children!